While the airship is better remembered for the fiery Hindenburg disaster of 1937 than for its many technological achievements, it was the fastest and most comfortable way to cross the Atlantic in its day.

Road Trip 2011: CNET's Daniel Terdiman got a chance to visit the headquarters of Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, the makers of the Zeppelin NT, and to see the partial construction of the next of the new-style airships to emerge from the Friedrichshafen, Germany hangar.

Road Trip 2011: The last one was decommissioned in 1940, but there was a day when Germany's zeppelins were the royalty of the skies. CNET visits the Zeppelin Museum to look at the history of aerial royalty.